by Scott Wilson : msn – excerpt
…In a few months, altering its past path, the state will begin an experiment in what amounts to coercive compassion, an initiative that unlike today’s mental health system will force people into treatment programs instead of jail and monitor their progress for at least a year.
More than three dozen states have some version of courts designed for those suffering from mental illness, many of which fall under the criminal court system and often include jail as a key part of a sentence. No state is attempting to establish a civil court program on the scale of California’s. Estimates by the National Alliance on Mental Illness show that a quarter of the state’s 170,000 homeless residents, more than a quarter of the nation’s total, has a serious mental illness.
But in California, sharp criticism has been raised, including by medical associations and civil rights groups, that the system Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has pushed will stigmatize people with certain mental illnesses and fail to provide enough protection for them from being drawn into the proposed process. Severe housing shortages for the mentally ill — and how appealing the idea is to the homeless — are key questions that have yet to be answered…(more)